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Oh My, How To Buy / A Raspberry Pi / From Canada

OK, it’s a bit of whimsy in the title here (I was aiming for a Haiku), but I’ve just ordered my impossible-to-get Raspberry Pi, so you’ll have to excuse me. If you’re in Canada, then here’s the steps to order yours ASAP as well. And if it doesn’t seem urgent to you (mine’s back ordered till August 1), then just remember: All those thousands and thousands of other people are ordering and getting in line ahead of you while you wait!

So, here’s how I did it (start from step 4 if you’re in a hurry):

Visited the American company handling it (Element14/Newark.com), at their US headquarters, and signed up for their “Register your interest NOW!” list:

Waited until they sent me an email – unfortunately, it was all in HTML (not text) so it took me a few emails from them to realize it wasn’t a garbled email, it was a sales message.

Followed the link to their US site, registered, ordered, then went through a huge mess trying to find international shipping, and gave up.

At that point, I realized something was wrong, searched the Canadian site for the Raspberry (which kept sending me to the US signup page), and then decided to give Great Auntie Google a try. A quick search later, and I found the Canadian equivalent of the US sales page:

From there, I was able to register an account (you need a Canadian registry on the Canadian site, US registering won’t work), placed the order, and sat back to wait until August.

$52.64 total paid out for my Raspberry Pi, taxes and shipping included.

Obviously, you will have an easier time of it than me if you simply follow the Canadian link and register a Canadian account!

By the by, there are a few more details to note when ordering:

I picked UPS for shipping. Although one of the other shipping options may be cheaper, I decided $12 flat for UPS was fine (and fast). And although I usually dislike UPS and their inflated (and hidden) brokerage fees, a quick search online showed me that people ordering from Newark aren’t paying anything above the $12, so I went for it.

You can try to order more than one Pi, and the system may allow it, but beware: One person mentioned online they were emailed later about an order problem and had to redo it. So although it’s tempting, I’d advise against it, unless you want to move to the back of the line!

Be prepared to keep room on your credit card balance awhile. I immediately got a $1.01 charge from “PREMIER FARNELL CANADA”, which is the Newark/Element14 parent company. I presume this is a test to make sure the order can go through, but it means you’ll likely want to plan on keeping $55.00 or so available in there, at least until August.

Since you can bypass the notification page using this link, should you? I’d recommend not. Place the order but also sign up – and use the same email address when placing an order ‘just in case’. If nothing else, you’ll probably get a few vital messages over the next months, for example if they allow more than one order, or if they start shipping. It’s a small price to pay to stay in the loop.

So that’s about it – now wait until August. Actually, I expect the backlog will be cleared long before that and I’ll be enjoying some Raspberry Pi over the summer. Even if not though, 4-1/2 months may seem a long time now – but it will come soon enough – So order yours ASAP!

I just ordered mine today. I’m in the US and I was sad to see that it wouldn’t be available until august 3 for me but it will be a fun surprise after I’ve forgotten about it over the summer. Still excited to see what we can get these little things to do. I want to put XBMC on mine and see how well it plays all the HD formats because my old xbox running xbmc is getting pretty tired what with all the moving parts and being over 10 years old.